You're missing the point. As The Joker said, Heath's Joker displays anger, frustration, joy and a weird form of love for Batman. Those are emotions. Whether they are related to killing or not, they are emotional responses. They are not something you can say doesn't count, regardless of whether you like them or not, those are emotions displayed by the character.

I just never thought of Joker to care any way of anything besides getting what he wanted, even if he needed Batman to be around to complete him(which would explain why Joker wouldn't be around in TDKR...Batman's not around, so Joker wouldn't want to be around as his other half isn't there).